As I've said in my replies, retreat a little and also said contain the scene. Shooting someone in the back, twice, is a last, last ditch thing that can only be justified to save a life (your own, or someone else’s). Actually, shooting them in the back isn't justified unless he was actually lining up to shoot someone in front of him (in front of the burglar). Which, is what may come out of the investigation.

rp1790: As I've said in my replies, retreat a little and also said contain the scene. Shooting someone in the back, twice, is a last, last ditch thing that can only be justified to save a life (your own, or someone else’s). Actually, shooting them in the back isn't justified unless he was actually lining up to shoot someone in front of him (in front of the burglar). Which, is what may come out of the investigation.

exactly so statements such as yours when you know very little isn't helpful is it.

Picture yourself in a similar situation where you are confronted by a guy at night that shoots at you and your mate and you have a firerarm and tell me you would be calm and decide to retreat a little (little being what given the range of even a .22) also we need to understand human instinct is for survival so if under threat we will react as we think fit which may not be in line with those of us that sit safe and snug at home using hindsight

rp1790: As I've said in my replies, retreat a little and also said contain the scene. Shooting someone in the back, twice, is a last, last ditch thing that can only be justified to save a life (your own, or someone else’s). Actually, shooting them in the back isn't justified unless he was actually lining up to shoot someone in front of him (in front of the burglar). Which, is what may come out of the investigation.

Guy steals, threatens and shoots at police. People are outraged he was stopped with deadly force? What happened is the best case scenario. He won't be wasting our money going through the courts and our money won't be feeding him in prison.

rp1790: As I've said in my replies, retreat a little and also said contain the scene. Shooting someone in the back, twice, is a last, last ditch thing that can only be justified to save a life (your own, or someone else’s). Actually, shooting them in the back isn't justified unless he was actually lining up to shoot someone in front of him (in front of the burglar). Which, is what may come out of the investigation.

How much active shooter training/experience do you have?

EDIT: Bold added

This person is dead on. Handling a firearm, especially a pistol, is nothing like what is portrayed in movies and on TV. I have had extensive firearms training (and realtime use) as an integral part of my occupation and can vouch for the concept of shooting for the centre of mass. In an intense life or death situation there is no such thing as "shoot to wound", the only likely outcome is that you'll miss and the target will get the chance to react.

The guy shot seems to have gotten exactly what was coming to him. I'd rather the police use justified and necessary force and put some social degenerate into the ground than have a police officer killed.

Firstly, the family's grief at this guy getting shot. That's reasonable, is may have been a criminal to us and a threat to the police. But to them he was a husband, brother, cousin, father, son and friend. That doesn't mean that he wasn't a criminal and a threat but I can understand the grief and the desire, however unjustified, to blame 'Them'. In this instance the police are standing in as 'Them', another service they are underpaid to do.

Secondly, we have the media needing to boost ratings, sell another newspaper (or one for that matter) and nothing sells like blaming authority. We have seen it once, we will see it again. Hardly news if you will pardon the pun.

When TheMantis says he has extensive firearms training and real world experience you had better believe him. How do I know this? Because he can refer to people as 'the target' without really realising he is doing so. Thank you for protecting us (I'm not being sarcastic by the way).

The one thing that really stands out for me out of this incident is the fact the officer actually managed to hit someone with a Police issued Glock, not once but twice! No easy feat.

There were two officers on their own in a rural location with no idea of how far away backup was. Most police will never come under fire in the course of their duties, its not hard to imagine that for these two this was their first and hopefully last experience. The fact that they first tried to use a taser against the offender shows that they were attempting to use non-lethal force before anything else.

rp1790, lookup jcmp21 on the Trademe message boards. I think you two would get along famously.

Police are trained to shoot at centre mass and use a technique called double tap, i.e. 2 shots at once so sounds like SOP (standard Operating Procedure) to me, they were in a situation where there lives were threatened they ha tried to use non lethal force and had to make a judgement call within a split second, A Cops life or a scumbags life, I know I am much happier knowing its the Cop that is still alive.

Not one of us where there , but my thoughts are on this are very strong, the Police put them selves in harms way for us all of us to protect our lives and property sometimes at the risk of their own, this scumbag had a weapon !!!! pure and simple he discharged this weapon he could have killed one of these two policemen, For rp1790 how about if it was your partner , Son , Daughter in the situation, how would you feel if the shot fired by this scumbag had killed them, he took a weapon to a crime situation and he was prepared to use it, this we do know as he actually fired the weapon this person didn't care and was prepared to kill, unfortunately for him he paid with his live, my biggest regret is the amount of media attention they are giving his family on this.

My thanks and support are fully with the Police, a very very thankless job for putting their lives on the line.

tardtasticx: Put simply, if you don't want to get shot and killed by police, don't go out and rob someones place and shoot at said police.

^^ this +10000000

I view this in the same light as fatalities from police chases.

If you don't want any injuries, pull over when you see the red and blues. Not that hard people.

Exactly my point which is why I was questioning whether it is simply bad journalism or people actually think like this. I understand stories are written for high viewership and interest, but to me this story is arguing a stupid point and is simply garbage, it should not even be published.

Then on the trademe message board I saw people commenting on this story and they seemed to be in support of the family so I was astounded.

I fail to see how anyone can be offended by that article. If there are people in the family or local community who express unease then that is part of the story. The 'official' family spokesperson quoted near the end of the article is conciliatory. Censorship of the kind you seem to be suggesting is not an option.